RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Ariel Sharon's death Saturday elicited
a wide range of responses from Palestinians, but sadness wasn't
one: Some cheered and distributed sweets while others prayed for divine
punishment for the former Israeli leader or recalled his central role in
some of the bloodiest episodes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinians widely loathed Sharon as the mastermind of crushing
military offensives against them in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza and
as the architect of Israel's biggest settlement campaign on lands
they want for a state.

The intensity of those feelings appears to have faded a bit because
Sharon left the public stage eight years ago, when he suffered a
debilitating stroke and slipped into a coma. Sharon died Saturday
afternoon at a Tel Aviv hospital.

The news traveled quickly in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps
in Lebanon's capital of Beirut, where Israeli-allied forces
systematically slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians in September 1982,
three months after Sharon engineered the invasion of Israel's
northern neighbor.

Sharon was later fired as defense minister over the massacre, with
Israeli investigators rejecting his contention at the time that he
didn't know the attack was coming.

"Sharon is dead!'' a 63-year-old Palestinian woman
in Sabra said, pointing to a text message from her daughter. "May
God torture him,'' said the woman who only gave her first
name, Samia. "We should celebrate. We should be firing in the
air.''

In the Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis, a few dozen supporters of
two militant groups, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance
Committees, gathered in the main street, chanting: "Sharon, go to
hell.'' Some burned Sharon pictures or stepped on them, while
others distributed sweets to motorists and passers-by.

Throughout his life, Sharon was at the center of the most
contentious episodes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, starting as a
young soldier fighting in the 1948 war over Israel's creation.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refrained from commenting on
the death of Sharon, whose decision in 2005 to withdraw from Gaza helped
bring the Islamic militant group Hamas to power two years later.

Some Palestinians expressed disappointment that Sharon hadn't
been put on trial or had suffered a violent death.

"I always wished he would be killed by a Palestinian child or
a woman, like he killed children and women,'' said Mohammed
el-Srour, a Sabra resident who lost his father and five siblings in the
massacre.

In Qibya, the village Sharon's forces raided in 1953,
residents stage a memorial march each year.

Village resident Hamed Ghethan, 65, said earlier this week that he
was sorry to see Sharon and the others involved in the attack escape
punishment. "We were hoping the world would hear our voice and try
them,'' he said.

The international group Human Rights Watch expressed a similar
sentiment, saying in a statement: "It's a shame that Sharon
has gone to his grave without facing justice for his role in Sabra and
Chatilla and other abuses.''

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